I have held off on commenting, as other people have succintly said what I was thinking, but I have to jump in here.

She sent you a box of 1600 live ladybugs for your daughter. What on earth did she think you were going to DO with them? One or two ladybugs in an aquarium she put together herself, fine; but 1600 bugs in a box?

Good heavens. I don't know what I would think about that.

ETA: Totally release the majority of them at MIL's house. Extra points if the releasing happens inside the house.

They sell them at my local Agway - I believe they are meant to control aphids in your garden. They come in boxes of hundreds - she probably couldn't get any less. Not that that makes it okay but if you are going to get ladybugs you are going to get a lot of them.

WillyNilly explained what I was trying to say very nicely. Thank you, WillyNilly!!

I'm going to be really blunt here, but, Slartibartfast, you can't have it both ways. You can't have MIL co-parent and then put restrictions on her co-parenting. It doesn't work that way for her. If you give it to her, she is going to expect to have that right 100%. Every time you allow her to do this, she will assume she can do it anytime she wants. You either have to accept this and work with her; or you have to take steps to set-up stricter boundaries. If allowing her to do this makes your life easier, than that 10% of the time is the payment you will have to pay now; and it may be larger as your kids get older. It isn't fair to her to expect her to have parenting rights when it works for you and to not have those rights when it doesn't work for you.

Quite honestly, if it were just me, I'd probably be stricter with her. DH needs a say in parenting our girls too, though, and a lot of the things that drive me crazy about MIL don't even register on his radar. (Not that he necessarily agrees with her, just that he shrugs and says "that's how she is" and that's that.) So life dealing with MIL is a constant series of compromises between me and DH about how upset to be (and how hard a line to take) whenever she does something we don't like.

OT re: the ladybugs. If you have a local horticultural society or botanical gardens, you might check with them to donate most of the lady bugs. Let BBF release them and then go back to visit 'her' friends.

Logged

After cleaning out my Dad's house, I have this advice: If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out!!!!.

Ladybugs! Hooray! Can I have some? They will go well with the swallowtail caterpillars chomping down on my fennel plants!I can no longer be objective. Yes, your mil has a somewhat different view of the world, and I just love her! I bet she knows all the people who work at that ice cream store by name, too,, so of course you let them help celebrate BBF birthday! Yes, let most of the ladybugs go at a park or field or even at yard of neighbor with lots of plants. your daughter is lucky to have a grandmother like your MIL. You..... will always have great mil stories to tell! Yeah, that's the ticket!

On the opposite end of objectivity, its 1600 ladybugs that if let loose near buildings are going to be invading people's homes and probably end up getting stomped and killed. What is a sweet gift one moment ends up turning sour as you have to figure out what do do with them. This is like a situation where grandparents take their grandchildren to get baptized or their hair cut. It is not physically harming them, but the situation is troubling.

On the opposite end of objectivity, its 1600 ladybugs that if let loose near buildings are going to be invading people's homes and probably end up getting stomped and killed for once. What is a sweet gift one moment ends up turning sour as you have to figure out what do do with them. This is like a situation where grandparents take their grandchildren to get baptized or their hair cut. It is not physically harming them, but the situation is troubling.

I'm more than curious what she expected you guys to DO with that many lady bugs!!

Your MIL sounds trying. I think you have a lot of patience to deal with her and her not thinking. I fear that my MIL will be similar. My parents will also try to control - but will do it much more openly as opposed to PA (meant or not)

1600 insects. That's what your MIL gave your daughter. Lady bugs are kind of cute, but they are still insects. What does she think you are going to do with all of those insects? If it were me, I'd give them back to her and make her take them to HER house.

Is there a local botanical garden that might appreciate them? I'd call around and see. Then you can release a few at home, talk to DD about how your little yard doesn't have enough aphids, etc. for all those ladybugs and they'd be much safer at the special gardens. Then take her and make a big, special deal about how happy they'll be and promise to come back and visit her ladybugs soon.

I really don't see anything wrong with having MIL parenting sometimes. That is some families' dynamics but it is not for other families. The problem I see is that when MIL doesn't like what she is told about how to "parent" (I'm using that term lightly here) she does what she wants instead. MIL is not crossing parenting boundaries because that is the dynamic the family has; she is crossing boundaries because she's not listening to what the primary caregivers say.

Exactly. I grew up spending three days a week at my grandparents. Until I was 12 my grandmother would be babysitting us for about three hours two nights a week. But she was always my grandma, not my mother. She never, ever disagreed with a decision my parents made. To me anyways. I realised she'd disagreed with a lot when they were discussing my auntie and how my mum and grandma thought she was too harsh on her kids at times, and I asked why she never said anything. Her response was that they are my auntie's children and that she gets to make that decision, not her. I asked if she agreed with everything my parents did and her response was 'of course not, but I'll back them every time'

The thought of my grandmother taking me somewhere behind my mother's back is just unfathomable to me. SB MIL is not co-parenting, she's trying to parent against the wishes of the actual parents.

SBF, just so you don't think that you were imagining things, Baskin Robbins does have single serve ice cream cakes called cake bites. They're on the website under ice cream novelties and treats. I got one for my DF and they even wrote his name on it for me. They may not have had them in the store your MIL went to, but you weren't making it up.

I think your MIL really wanted the birthday cake to be something special between your daughter and her, but I think she forgot just how important birthday are for the MOM! This is just as much celebrating for you.

Also, the ladybugs thing is just weird, I would actually ask her what she was thinking on that one. This is one of those things where I wouldn't believe it to be rude to ask her "So why a box of ladybugs?" I'm sure there's a polite way to ask that, but I can't think of one of the top of my head.